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A hardware problem we somethimes forget about

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  • A hardware problem we somethimes forget about

    In all our hardware problem discussions there is one problem that I too often forget to mention. The move to ATA66 and ATA100 so far eliminates it, but it crops up duing upgrades of older systems.

    IDE cable length! Bottom line: UDMA will not work reliably on an IDE cable longer than 18".

    I helped a friend over the weekend on a motherboard swap that went badly. (Yes, new MB was a VIA chipset :-) Initialy I failed to notice he had a very long cable (~30") on his C: drive. Replacing the cable with the proper <18" lenght and deleting everything for the new motherboard in safe mode, finally let PnP restore the system after a few more reboots.

    If you are having dropped frames, poor performance, or windows is more unstable than usual, check those IDE cable lengths!

    I've never seen an ATA66 80-pin cable that exceeded 18". If some turkey starts selling them, don't buy! no matter how much easer it makes filling your tower case with hard drives!

    --wally.

  • #2
    Yepp, Got one right here aprox 60 cm = 24'.
    Never used it since i read the ATA66 specs before i plugged in the drive(s)!

    BUT what about those who "rounds" their flatcables?

    I never liked the idea on sub ata33 cables and i find it even more teriffying on ata100 cables, signal jumping anyone?

    ------------------
    System 1
    Intel PIII-800/133MHz MSI 6337
    Pixelview GeForce MX 32MB sdram
    SBlive Value (oldest piece of equipment in my can ! )
    256 MB RAM CAS3 @ 133MHz
    58GB HDD Space!(Actual 60GB) (30+30 IBM DTLA 30GB drives)
    Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
    SONY CRX140E 8/4/32 CDRW

    System 2
    PIII550/100MHZ Gigabyte GA-6BXE
    G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
    128 MB RAM CAS3 133MHz@100MHz
    Fujitsu 2.6 GB HD (system)
    IBM DTLA 30GB (Capture)
    Sony 48X CD-ROM TRAY
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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    • #3
      I'd never do it, that's for sure. At any rate it'll be moot once the move to SerialATA gets going. Only 4 wires, two power and two data, and no master/slaves.

      Dr. Mordrid

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      • #4
        Serial ATA sounds great, but how exactly is it better than firewire which works now and also uses 6 wires -- 4 for data and two for power and is not confined to ATAPI devices only.

        Firewire has mapped out a migration path well beyond 1Gbit/sec and is an IEEE standard.

        --wally.

        Sorry for the typo in the thread title :-(

        Comment


        • #5
          Oops!

          I mis-read. Only four wires on serialATA?

          How? Is it not a full duplex protocol?

          I'm highly skeptical of self-clocking serial I/O working at much greater than 100Mhz speeds -- Gigabit ethernet needs all four pairs of the cat5 cable for seperate data in, data out, clock in, clock out. Or is serialATA restricted to absurdly short cable lenghts eliminating the possibility of external devices?

          --wally.


          [This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 18 December 2000).]

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          • #6
            We'll forgive your typo there, wkulecz. Thit happens.

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